I realized that I have a type when it comes to people I consider personal heroes. They tend to be mechanically minded tinkers / artists, people like Alexander Calder or Rebecca Horn or mine friend Tom Jennings. They don’t necessarily take themselves too seriously, but they do meaningful work. There’s another big one on the list, someone I’ve admired for years: Bruce Meyers, the man who practically alone started the entire wonderful Volkswagen-based car kit and dune buggy industry. He died today, at his home in Valley Center, California.
Bruce was best known for the car that bears his name, the Meyers Manx, which is, I think, an absolute icon of automotive design, yet the image that comes to everyone’s mind when they hear the words “buggy”.
People in Southern California had been hacking vehicles like “dune buggy” from old Jeeps and dismantled cars for years, and when the Volkswagen Beetle started to gain popularity in America in the 1950s, the kind of person who liked to drive. piles of sand began to notice that the small light car had surprisingly good traction, was sturdy and the body was easy to remove, all great qualities for a small off-road.
People began to disassemble the beetles for off-road use, and Bruce realized this in the early 1960s. Bruce was not only happy to rip the fenders off a Bug and end the day; Bruce was a real artist, no joke, and he was building fiberglass boats for Jensen Marine, a combination that led to the formula that would make him famous: a beautifully designed fiberglass body that could be bolted directly to a Beetle chassis (reduced).
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The first version of Bruce’s idea, built in 1964, was a little different from the later production versions that would later be called Manxes, in honor of the tailless cats, for having a more unibody design, with hard tips to screw the axles and the Volkswagen power train, but there is no need for the plate.
That first Manx, with additional green fuel tanks made from reused welding gas tanks, was known as Old Red, made a record off-road race from Tijuana to La Paz, a race that would inspire the famous Baja 1000 off-road race that still works today.
Let’s take a look at Meyers Manx, because it is one of those designs that are so intertwined in our cultural automotive awareness that it can be difficult to think objectively.
Given the limitations of the requirements for the Manx – sturdy, inexpensive, easy to assemble in a yard with basic tools – the result is, I believe, an absolute triumph of design.
The body is a basic bathtub that incorporates almost everything – you just screw a windshield, lights and a protection bar and you are practically ready to go. For the time, it was a completely updated design, a design direction completely different from the design of the 1930 Beetle, and with its almost catenary curved fenders that form the overall shape it looks like a Architectural work by Eero Saarinen, only on a much smaller scale.
Meyers described Manx in an interview:
I am an artist and wanted to bring a sense of movement and gesture to Man. The dune buggies have a message: fun. They are fun to drive and should look alike. Nothing happened at the time. So I looked at him and took care of the known things. The upper part of the front fenders had to be flat to hold a few beers, the sides had to rise high enough to keep mud and sand out of your eyes, had to be compatible with the Beetle’s mechanics and you had to be able to build yourself. So I added all the Mickey Mouse line and feminine form and adventure that I could. “
The result was absolutely perfect for what needed to be, maybe too perfect, because it was imitated almost immediately, mercilessly and relentlessly.
Everyone, even the pillars of American commerce like Sears, was creating and selling shameless and despite having a design patent, Meyers was unlucky in court, and the flood of imitations ended up bankrupting him in 1971.
Bruce recovered, inventing the fiberglass hot tub, and later in life returning to build Manxes.
I met Bruce a few years ago when I was driving a Class 11 desert racing Beetle; he was warm and kind, and we talked at length about all kinds of Volkswagen and buggy ephemera. He was so sharp and warm, and it was difficult to reconcile that this was a real human being who had created this thing that somehow seemed to have always existed.
The design of the Manx buggy was so iconic to me that meeting Bruce had the same kind of surreal effect that you would feel if you were introduced to the person who invented that feeling you feel after a long day at the beach with friends, when you I am young and beautiful and a little sunburnt and your hair looks thick and salty and the sunset is leaving the inside of your car in shades of bright orange and everything looks wonderful in the world.
It would be like meeting that person. All that feeling is a car.
I don’t think Bruce Meyers gets the recognition he deserves as an automobile designer; he is recognized for sure – his first Manx is on the National Register of Historic Vehicles, after all, but I think his achievement places him among the most recognized car designers like Virgil Exner or Gordon Buehrig.
He designed a car that started a new class of vehicles, an entire sub-industry; how many car designers can say that?
Bruce Meyers showed the world how much fun cars can be and then put the ability to really Ramp up those cars in anyone’s hands with some free weekends and a battered old Volkswagen. Your Manx was free of pretense, status or foolish posture – it was simple and fun, and a gift for everyone who loves the feeling of being on the move.
Bruce remains one of my automotive heroes, and he will be missed.